Nessie
Nessie was given to 5 girls in 2025, #16,579 among girls’ names; 97 Americans have been recorded with it since 1902 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Nessie by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Nessie mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Nessie is “a diminutive of the female given name Agnes.”
Suffixed with -ie, compare Neddie and Nellie, respectively from Edward and Eleanor
/ˈnɛsi/
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Nessie?
#16,579 among girls’ names, 2025
Nessie entered the girls’ rankings after 2015 and stood at #16,579 in 2025.
10 babies in 1915, the peak
Nessie peaked in 1915, when 10 girls were given it, #2,842 among girls’ names. The 5 births of 2025 are 50% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 5 | #16,579 | 3.1 |
| 2024 | 5 | #16,989 | 3.1 |
| 1985 | 5 | #11,900 | 2.9 |
| 1932 | 5 | #4,907 | 4.7 |
| 1928 | 5 | #5,229 | 4.3 |
| 1927 | 6 | #4,665 | 5.0 |
| 1924 | 5 | #5,662 | 4.0 |
| 1921 | 6 | #4,927 | 4.9 |
| 1919 | 7 | #4,136 | 6.2 |
| 1918 | 8 | #3,767 | 6.9 |
Every recorded year (16)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1916 | 7 | #3,817 | 6.7 |
| 1915 | 10 | #2,842 | 10.2 |
| 1914 | 7 | #3,094 | 9.2 |
| 1912 | 5 | #3,305 | 9.0 |
| 1911 | 6 | #2,391 | 14.3 |
| 1902 | 5 | #1,964 | 18.9 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Nessie a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Nessie has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 16 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Nessie: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Nessie, and how old are they?
An estimated 16 Americans named Nessie and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026, too few to state an age range. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 185 people named Nessie (172 women and girls, 13 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 9 born in the U.S. The Census count is 20.6 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 3 names spelled alike, given to 1,539 babies since 1880, Nessie is the second most given (6.3% of them). In 2025 it was given to 5 of their 68 babies (7.4%), again the second most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
More about Nessie and names like it
- Compare Nessie and NessaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1910sNessie peaked in 1915.
- The top names of 1915The year the most babies were named Nessie.
- Names starting with NMost given first.